Peter Fulton
Canterbury Wizards captain Peter Fulton gives us an insight into life as a professional cricketer and shares his view on all things cricket.
Winter for most Canterbury Wizards cricketers involves a long haul flight to a dreary northern English town to earn a wage playing club cricket during the off-season. This usually means enduring mind numbingly boring weekdays leading up to a game on the weekend when, as the ‘pro’, anything less than bowling 20-25 overs, taking 5 wickets and scoring a hundred is deemed a failure by the crusty old timers propping up the bar. However, the extra responsibility and pressure that comes with being the only paid player in the team is ideal preparation for the upcoming season. Combine this with the friendships that are made along with the opportunity to do some travelling around europe and all of a sudden five months in the Lancashire Leagues doesn’t sound so bad after all!
This year I decided to stay in Christchurch. This has meant coaching some talented youngsters for Canterbury Country Cricket; running up and down hills with our trainer Neil ‘Mad Max’ Tyndall and trying to get some sort of sense out of EQC like most other Christchurch home owners!
".... a few will have been faced with the proposition of having to get a “real” job"
As professional sportsmen the problem we all have is that gone are the days where an employer would allow a provincial rugby or cricket player to come and go as they please during the season and then resume normal service during the winter months. Domestic cricketers now all depend on getting one of the 12 contracts on offer each season if we want to be able to solely focus on improving our cricket performance. All this means that the last few weeks have been extremely nerve wracking for some of the guys as contracts have been announced and a few will have been faced with the proposition of having to get a “real” job. The reality is that no-one will make their fortune playing for Canterbury. Personally, I wouldn’t swap it for anything, but the amount of hard work that we put in plus a lack of job security and post-cricket careers means that it isn’t always the dream job some make it out to be?
On another note I have also been lucky enough to be re-appointed as captain of the Wizards for the coming season. This is something that I take a great deal of pride in. I look at some of the names who have held the position prior to me; Walter Hadlee, Graham Dowling, Paul McEwan, Rod Latham, Gary Stead, Chris Harris, and I realise the responsibility I have been given to continue the winning legacy that Canterbury Cricket has built. I spent every summer from the age of 5 down at Lancaster Park and there is no-one more passionate about Canterbury cricket than me. I want to instil that passion into the team and play an aggressive and attractive brand of cricket so that the Canterbury name continues to be engraved on trophies over the next few years.
